As part of the WUJS program, we are given the option to participate in a number of different classes/seminars based on interest and time. I have taken advantage of Judaic Classes with our teacher Rachel Goldberg, as well as most (if not all) of the siyurim/field trips, and tonight, we had ceramics class! So fun.
11 of us are signed up for tonight's class, and we show up at 6:30 in the classroom in our building. The instructor, Myles, comes in with a huge heavy looking backpack (I guess he's got clay in there!) and starts unpacking his things.
He tells us we are going to have the clay olympics. Task one - form a team and make up a team name. OK, done. We are the "Grouches" - partly because some of us are cranky and/or just woke up from naps or want naps, but mostly because Danit is wearing a shirt with Oscar the Grouch's face on it and we were just really lame and couldn't think of anything else. The other groups have their names too and we begin. Competition number one - who can roll the longest length of clay in coils in 5 minutes. We immediately start breaking up the clay, throwing it on the floor and rolling it into nice thin pieces that connect with one another. Extending, extending, adding, adding. The floor is so dirty, the clay is picking up dirt, hair, concrete pieces, dust, it is really quite disgusting. I hope we aren't really using this for anything fancy.
Well we take out the tape measures and measure each one of the to discover that our team wins! We had the longest coil of attached pieces of all the teams. Go team grouches. Moving on to task number two. Who can build the highest structure/tower with their clay? So we ball it back up and start again with this new challenge. Five minutes starts now. Again we roll the clay into coils, but our strategy is a mix between Lincoln Logs (leaving plenty of space for air, to build higher and higher) and Jenga (sturdy and stacked). We start with some pretty fat pieces for the base, so it is nice and strong. As we build up, we run out of clay very quickly. So we have to start taking from the bottom pieces. But if we recoil them into smaller coils, it takes away some of the height. So then we really get into the Jenga idea and just try to remove bulk without height. It seems to work relatively well but the other groups still have us beat in the end. Chaval/too bad.
We crush it all up one last time and our task as individuals on our team is to each make something specific with a lump of clay we are given. The other teams have to guess what each person's item is, and if they guess correctly, the team who made the item gets a point. Incentive to make these things as detailed and accurate as possible. The good news, we have way more than 5 minutes this time. Myles got us all so worked up that even when we first started on this task, tensions were high in the room. He finally said - guys we have plenty of time for this one, slow down, take your time. Our team gets 4 items: a helicopter, a fruit bowl - with at least a banana and a pineapple, a meal including a hamburger and a milkshake, and a hightop sneaker with laces (Chuck Taylor is the brand maybe? Something like Converse? I'm so not into fashion.) I take the sneaker, Danit takes the meal, PJ takes the fruit bowl, and Josh does the helicopter. Together, we've done a pretty good job. The other groups basically figure out ours, and we basically figure out theirs. Some of the items include: a tank, a vase of flowers, a couple watching TV, Mr. T, and the Statue of Liberty (which gets destroyed by the helicopter and the tank, which are both obviously from the IDF and you don't mess with the IDF).
Last task of the night - make something from clay to float in water. OK so our group decides (you know, cause we're badasses) that we are going to make a root beer float! Out of 100 points possible, we get 20 for creativity, but clearly any clay we put in the water sinks straight to the bottom. The other two teams try their floating pieces; they both fail miserably as well.
The Clay Olympics are over and our team wins it, only because we killed it in the coil competition. WOO HOO! Time to clean up and head out for the evening. Next week he says we will begin to work on something that is functional, now that we've gotten a lot out of the way in terms of learning about clay properties. It gets dry when overworked, it can be made into flat pieces, coil pieces, cut into various shapes, is heavy to work with, etc. Next week I hope to either walk away with something, or have something on its way to being functional. Can't wait!
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